Blog
Foundation an Earth
I really enjoyed Foundation’s Edge and I had great expectations of Foundation and Earth. I was disappointed. About 90% of the story just plods on. Then the last 10% is really good, but goes super fast. I think part of the problem is that Asimov was told to write longer books and this has resulted in...
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The Gathering: Great Band. Great Set. Great Venue. Great Sound!
Great Band. Great Set. Great Venue. Great Sound! Need I say more? I will…We loved the Shepherd's Bush Empire the first time we went in December 2023 for Paradise Lost and My Dying Bride, so we were really excited to be going back. It didn’t disappoint. We had some good seats in the balcony and the s...
Help Shape My Research - Your Input Matters!
I’m currently working on a new piece of writing that I’m hoping to present next year, and I’d really value your input. To support this research, I’ve created a short survey to gather perspectives, experiences, and insights. Whether you’ve got strong opinions or just a few minutes to spare, your resp...
Clean Architecture is both a product of its time and a set of ideas that transcend its time.
For a book divided into small, discrete and easily absorbable chapters, there’s a lot of Clean Architecture. Its strengths are the discussion of the SOLID Principles, Compensation and insistence on abstract interfaces, encapsulated concrete interfaces, loose coupling and cohesion - every software en...
London Tech Leaders Summit 2026
When One Beyond invited me to take part in the London Tech Leaders Summit, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. What I definitely wasn’t expecting was a seven‑foot robot interrupting the opening welcome.As the doors flung open, the robot ducked to fit through, marched to the side of the stage, interr...
Deep Imports Are Not Faster
I wrote Deep Imports Considered Harmful for two reasons. Obviously to persuade people not to use deep imports, but I also wanted to reinforce that components should have an abstract interface and an encapsulated concrete implementation.I was expecting some pushback, but all I got was something I sho...
Back to Basics: Why the principles that built our industry still matter today
Looking ahead to next year, I want to talk about Abstraction, Encapsulation, Cohesion and Loose Coupling as it seems they are missing from a lot of modern software design.Back to Basics: Why the principles that built our industry still matter todayThere are only three things certain in life: death, ...
Deep Imports Considered Harmful
Keep It LooseDeep down we all know it’s important to componentise software systems. It allows different parts of the systems, the components, to change and evolve over time with minimal effect on other parts of the system. Designed and implemented correctly, components are loosely coupled, as well a...
Persepolis Rising
Persepolis Rising is set thirty years later and goes off in a different and uninteresting direction. It is of course possible that the entire book is setting up the story for the final two to be brilliant, but the story arc is only referenced in the epilogue.At the beginning the story makes the read...
Configuring Claude Code to Enforce Your Own Guidelines
I’ve been using Claude Code without many rules for a while. It’s certainly not the most efficient or effective way to use it. With its help, I learnt how to create some persistent rules around logging. When we’d finish I had Claude produce this blog post. It’s been reviewed and revised by me. See wh...